Pitch Wars Pimp My Bio 2016!

I am super excited to be entering the contest this year. This post is your go-to place to find out more about yours truly!

Who I Am

My name is Madison Lessard. I live in a little town about forty miles outside of Boston with my family, as well as a dog who (like me) is very appreciative of food and a cat who pets himself by rubbing against inanimate objects.

I write mostly contemporary young adult. I’ve been an avid writer and reader for as long as I can remember, and this is my first time doing Pitch Wars.

What I’m Writing

The novel I’m submitting for Pitch Wars is a contemporary YA entitled While I’m Here. It follows the summer adventures (and misadventures) of heart patient Casey, who is racing against the clock to make a few months the best of his life.

He wakes up in the hospital on his graduation morning to an unwelcome surprise. His doctor diagnoses him with an irreversible condition that leaves him just a couple more months to live. His immediate reaction? Not so great. Content to spend the rest of his brief life in bed, he confines himself to his bedroom and shuts everyone out.

But a week after his diagnosis, his two best friends present to him a plan for their summer: a very lengthy bucket list, a trip with no destination, and one summer to do as much as they can.

Casey is sold, and so his last summer begins. There’s just one problem: his parents, who are still coming to terms with losing their son, aren’t so crazy about his ideas.

And for fun… this is the #novelaesthetics post I made for WHILE I’M HERE.

Here are some fun facts about Casey…

He is a huge geek about cars, but the one he drives is a disaster. The car itself is almost like a character in the book because Casey is always complaining about it not running right.

He has a form of congenital heart disease called truncus arteriosus in which his heart doesn’t function correctly, and he’s spent weeks of his life at a time in the hospital because of it.

He’s extremely headstrong, and once he sets his mind on a goal, he’ll stop at absolutely nothing to get there.

His bucket list has 100 things on it, and he started writing it in the fifth grade after a major medical episode that left him near dead.

He appreciates blueberry pancakes with syrup and bacon very, very much.

In addition to While I’m Here, I have several other contemporary YA novels in the early stages, and I have two other complete manuscripts on the backburner right now.

More About Me

I’m a music person. I love to sing and I play three instruments– the clarinet, the piano, and the saxophone.

I’m a little bit of a geography buff. I have a bunch of (probably unnecessary, but still fun to do) groups of geographical things memorized– including the countries of the world. Try me!

I’ve been a dancer in various types since I was three.

I’m a little bit of a musical theatre nerd.

I am a firm believer that almost any problem can be solved by eating a slice of purple velvet cake.

I take pictures of everything. I’m serious.

Why do I want to do Pitch Wars?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the course of my writing life so far, it’s that you never stop improving. My seventh-grade English teacher always used to tell us that a piece of writing is ‘alive’– it can always be changed and get better.

I was introduced to Pitch Wars earlier this year by a previous mentee, and when I learned what it was, I knew I wanted to enter. I’m entering Pitch Wars because I want to improve. I want to learn about deadlines and writing on a tight schedule. I want to edit and revise. I want to connect with someone over my manuscript and make it so that someday, other people will connect with it, too.

But honestly, the biggest thing that has drawn me to Pitch Wars has been the people in the community. Over the course of this summer so far alone, I’ve met so many fantastic people in the writing world. The long road towards publication so far has been downright scary at times, and the amount of support I’ve gotten from other people in the Pitch Wars community (and the writing community in general) has been absolutely inspirational.

I am ready to work hard and meet some more fantastic people! No matter what happens in Pitch Wars, I will look back at this experience when it’s over as one of my greatest lessons in the writing world yet.